scicior

I’m a bit spoiled; I’m likely to have any header I might need, and I’ve got a Metcal desoldering station If I don’t like the pre-installed header and want to use something different. I say that to help you understand what kind of customer I am (I doubt I’d fall into the typical category…). That being said, I doubt I’d pay an extra $1 to have headers installed on a $10-$20 board. I love it when the headers are included and not soldered, because digging around my header box to find what I’m looking for just reminds me how unorganized I am. If the price was the same with headers installed and not, I’d buy it with them soldered just because I feel like I’m getting a better deal.

I think what Member #134773 is assuming is that the ‘average’ power factor in the US is inductive, and by having capacitive loads, it brings the power factor that the utilities see closer to unity. Lower power factor increases the current (higher imaginary power) causing losses in the power grid. But the power company can only charge for ‘real’ power…. since there is less imaginary power with capacitive loads, it shouldn’t cost the power company much if anything. The power the capacitive load is using use to be imaginary power to the utility (they can’t bill for it, so wasted power) but now it’s ‘real’. Not much difference to the utility, except now they can sell it. Or at least this is my SWAG.

“(you’d be surprised how many tank heaters I’ve seen malfunction!)” One day my Daughter noticed a strange smell…. looking through the house we found a heater in our Reef tank bubbling…. yup. Insulation broke down and was electrolyzing the salt water…. and electrocuted on of my favorite corals….

Hmmm…. reminds me of people talking about ‘Blood Diamonds’ or ‘Free Trade Coffee’… what next, ‘Blood Arduinos?’. The Red Board doesn’t quite fit into this description, I would assume… But my point is, yes, I also see why Spark Fun wouldn’t want to list their supplier, but the ‘Free Trade Coffee’ types use it as a selling point.

“… someone says Arduino, do you think of the board or the software first?” Umm…. Which board? ‘Arduino’ has drifted off into so many different things it’s really hard to keep up. Did I hear they decided to get into 3D printers as well? So no, I don’t think of ‘the board’; what comes to mind is some fuzzy concept, kind of a mix between the types of people I associate with Arduino hardware/software (open source artist/hacker types) vs the image of what I think of when someone says ‘Embedded Systems Engineer’ (more ‘Professional’ in the sense that he/she might program at a much higher level with expensive tools and equipment, and quite possibly goes home at night and doesn’t think about his/her day job). I use the Arduino environment at work now a days after I started seeing my scientist coworkers playing with them for personal projects. Now I can build a custom board (not use any purchased Arduino board), burn the bootloader in, write the shell of an example program and let them modify it to their heart’s content. I will be using a P.C. and they use their Macs. They are no longer dependent on me to make minor software modifications.

Use an LM317 adjustable voltage regulator to modulate the supply voltage of your oscillator to make an AM transmitter… When you realize the LM317 is just trying to keep it’s output 1.25V above the ‘ref’ terminal, you can use it for all sorts of things it wasn’t originally intended for…
- Steve

Back in 7th grade I was arguing with a friend what was more elegant; hex or octal. After he pointed out that after memorizing the binary representation of the 8080A instruction set, for the move, add, compare, etc, instructions, some of 3 bit fields (which can easily be represented in octal) always map to the same register. Oh, and using a 7447 TTL chip to represent a hex number on a 7 segment display just looked stupid…. couldn’t argue with that.
- Steve

Any idea how high of a pressure the Bosch/Sunpro 7577 sender can read? Since replacing the 7 HP motor on my air compressor with a 3 phase motor and VFD, I am a bit worried what might happen if the motor fails to turn off, and would like to add some redundant protection circuits…

SparkFun is an online retail store that sells the bits and pieces to
make your electronics projects possible. Whether it's a robot that can
cook your breakfast or a GPS cat tracking device, our products and
resources are designed to make the world of electronics more accessible.

In addition to products, SparkFun also offers
classes and online tutorials to help educate
individuals in the wonderful world of embedded electronics.